Google has two classes of shares, GOOG (no voting rights) and GOOGL (has voting rights). Despite being worthless for the foreseeable future, meaning until Larry and Sergey sell their shares, the price premium for GOOGL hovers around $5.

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/052615/whats-differ...

Or if one of them wants to cooperate with an external shareholder rather than the other. It's still two people who could have different opinions. Controlling another 25%+1 can be valuable.

> They went into it knowing that their shares' votes would be useless.

I don't disagree with that at all, and I would see the current holders compensated for their shares. What I _am_ saying is I don't think society is benefitting from this structure.

> the shareholders have validated their control every day since Google went public

What? No, that's not how that works. The market has decided solely on the current price for Google shares. There's no nuance about what the market thinks about Page and Brin other than they think that the stock is currently accurately price, no more and no less.

There are all sorts of things that don't benefit society directly that are consequences of things that do benefit society. In this case, maybe society doesn't benefit from the structure of Google, but it does benefit widely from the notion of private property, and the one is a consequence of the other.

I hear your argument, and it’s a good one. That said, we break up monopolies, we confiscate dangerous animals that people privately own, we tax inheritance... and we have well established rules of eminent domain for just this reason. As I said, I have no trouble with them being compensated fairly for it, and I think that protects the economic system.

To be fair, it is not the role of a corporate to "benefit society", but instead to benefit shareholders.

We force corporations to do all sorts of things that harm shareholder value in pursuit of benefitting society. Voters get to decide what they want the role of a corporation to be.

> We force corporations to do all sorts of things that harm shareholder value in pursuit of benefitting society.

True, but those things are not the driving force of the corporate, they're things that the corporate has to do to remain in compliance with the laws of the land. There's a very different mindset between compliance (stuff you do as cheaply and minimally as you can) and your purpose - your raison d'être - the theme that earns the big promotions and holds the attention of the stockholders.

And as for voters deciding what they want the role of a corporation to be... well yes, in the same theoretical sense that voters can decide what sort of healthcare system they want. Or what tax system they want. Which is to say, not at all.